Every Breath You Take

The Police

Every Breath You Take is a song by English rock band The Police from their 1983 album Synchronicity. Written by Sting, the single was the biggest hit of 1983, topping the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for eight weeks (the band’s only number-one hit on that chart), and the UK Singles Chart for four weeks. It also topped the Billboard Top Tracks chart for nine weeks.

The song is considered to be both The Police’s and Sting’s signature song, and in 2010 was estimated to generate between a quarter and a third of Sting’s music publishing income. In the 1983 Rolling Stone critics and readers poll, it was voted “Song of the Year”. In the US, it was the best-selling single of 1983 and fifth-best-selling single of the decade. Billboard ranked it as the number-one song for 1983.

Sting wrote the song in 1982 in the aftermath of his separation from Frances Tomelty and the beginning of his relationship with Trudie Styler. Their split was controversial. As The Independent reported in 2006, “The problem was, he was already married – to actress Frances Tomelty, who just happened to be Trudie’s best friend (Sting and Frances lived next door to Trudie in Bayswater, west London, for several years before the two of them became lovers). The affair was widely condemned.” In order to escape from the public eye, Sting retreated in the Caribbean where he started writing the song.[10] The lyrics are the words of a possessive lover who is watching “every breath you take; every move you make”. (source: Wikipedia)